Blog #5

Jake Haman

Professor Bolaski

English 100

November 18th 2013

 

    1.   The opinion piece I chose to write about is Getting fit, even if it kills you.  This article was published in the New York Times by Stephanie Cooperman.  This piece is very interesting to me because I have been trying to figure out for the last year if I am a fan of cross fit or not.  It is explicitly stated through the piece that cross fit is not for the novice.  If you are new to cross fit, or working out in general, and want to begin with cross fit you are more than likely to get hurt. In this article Wayne Winnick, a sports medicine specialist says, " there's no way inexperienced people doing this, are not going to hurt themselves."

2.  Some of the objections to this claim are used in the article as peoples personal achievement stories through cross fit, such as this, "

Eva Twardokens, 40, an Olympic alpine skier in the 1992 and 1994 games, said years of cross fit training have enabled her to bench-press 155 pounds, 20 more than she was able to do when she was training for the Olympics."  Some of the other objections are that cross fit work outs can be made more or less intense based on the persons abilities but they can still do the same exact workout.  Also Mr. Glassman, the founder of cross fit is pretty open about the claims made he says," It can kill you, I've always been completely honest about that!"

3. The people who are making these objections are the ones who enjoy pushing the limits of fitness and strength also known as the cross fit followers.  Today cross fit has more than 50 affiliates in 21 states and 5 countries.  Also Mr. Glassman's site has averaged 25,000 new visitors a week. The concession was also stated earlier by Mr. Glassman's statement at the end of paragraph two.

4.  The rebuttal is stated in the last paragraph of the article, I wouldn't say it is a great objection to the claim being made but it shows how the founder of cross fit is sticking to his guns.  Mr. Glassman states, " dismissals of his extreme workouts merely help him weed out the weak." He also states, " if you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck foreign to you, then we don't want you in our ranks."